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Thursday, June 19, 2014

Book Spotlight - Krysten Lindsay Hager

Krysten Lindsay Hager is a fellow Astraea Press author. She's written her debut novel and it looks like a great read for teenage girls.

Krysten Lindsay Hager
is an author and book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like.
She’s worked as a journalist and also writes middle grade, YA, humor essays,
and adult fiction. Her debut novel, TRUE COLORS, will be out June 17th from
Astraea Press. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in South Dakota,
Portugal, and currently resides in Southern Ohio where you can find her reading
and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows.I so agree, Krysten, bookstores are great!!

Blurb:

Every day I walked down the sidewalk
to school and wished I were one of the interesting popular girls who ran up
with exciting news. Just once I’d like to be one of those girls instead of the
being the one who didn’t get invited to things because people “forgot” about
me.

Landry gets pushed into trying out
for the American Ingénue reality show modeling competition with her two best
friends. She doesn’t think she stands a
chance, but she advances to the next level in the competition and her friends
ignore her when they get cut.

Enter the gorgeous Devon, who also
makes the first cut and includes Landry in her clique. Devon becomes the
perfect best friend, but can their friendship survive the competition?

Landry hopes her big break could
come at any moment, but soon sees there’s much more to modeling. She begins
missing out on being with friends and has the chance to have a boyfriend when
she meets a boy named Vladi from another school.

Part of Landry wants to be famous
(and have her hair look good for once), but part of her just wants to be
accepted. She learns about friendships, being true to yourself, and that a good
hair conditioner doesn’t hurt.

Excerpt:

The competition was for girls
between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, but it felt like Ericka, Tori, and
I were the youngest ones there. I only saw a couple of girls from school, and
the lineup looked more like something you’d see on a music video set. All the
girls were gorgeous, and they had these curvy womanly bodies. I looked like a
skinny little kid next to them. The first girl walked out, and I heard the
judges say she “owned the runway,” and, “walked like a gazelle.” I was starting
to feel ill. I wasn’t sure which way it was going to come, but I knew I had to
find a bathroom — fast. I started to get out of line when Ericka grabbed my
wrist.

“It’s almost time,” she said. A tiny
bit of spit flew out of her mouth and hit my cheek.

I wasn’t sure why she was so intent
on me going through with it, but she had a death grip on my arm, so I didn’t
have much of a choice. Her number was called and she walked out to the stage.
One of the other girls said she walked like a kid with sand bucket stilts on
her feet, but she came back with a smirk on her face like she knew she’d get
chosen.

“They said they had never seen such
long legs,” she said.

Tori was next.

“She walks like a gorilla at feeding
time,” said the girl behind me. I went next, and I tried to focus on not
tripping over my feet. My mom’s pumps had a rubber sole on the bottom, which
probably wasn’t the brightest idea seeing as my shoes were making squeaking
noises as I walked. I was so nervous I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked. I
looked like the plastic clown who blows up balloons with its mouth at the Pizza
Palace. When I got to the end of the runway, I tried to cross my feet to turn
like the other girls had, but I over rotated and ended up doing a full spin
which made my kilt fan out and gave the mall walkers a view of my blue
underpants. I tried to act like it was intentional and did an extra turn. One
of the judges put her hand up to stop me, and I held my breath as she started
to speak.